The Daily Express reports that Weigl has been earmarked by Barca to replace Sergio Busquets – but City boss has also targeted the player as he is aware that defensive midfielders Yaya Toure and Fernandinho are out of contract at the end of the season.

Weigl is still only 23, but has totalled nearly 100 Bundesliga appearances for Dortmund, having moved there from Bundesliga 2 side 1860 Munich. Weigl made his international debut for Germany in 2016, where he came off the bench to face Slovakia. He made the Germany squad for the 2016 Euros, but didn’t see any action.

Weigl suffered a broken ankle towards the end of last season but his consistency and performances had already been enough to get him shining brightly on the Barca and City radar – he has subsequently returned to the Dortmund line up, who have made an impressive start to their season, leading the league have lost only one of their eight games, and being two points clear of Bayern Munich who lie second. Their Champions League campaign though is already in danger of failure, having lost both of their two games, to Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur.

It would be a fascinating clash should Barcelona and Manchester City go to war over Weigl. City have an extremely deep war chest and whilst Barcelona are still sat on most of the cash received from the world record sale of Neymar to PSG, there is still the feeling that they need to move more players before they can bring them in.